Friday, March 15, 2013

According to an excellent article
by Salon, however, many influential
doctors do see their bottom lines enriched by companies that have an interest
in miracle drugs and devices being either prescribed or required for use.

Doctors who sit on quasi-government boards that push for
things like requiring commercial drivers be tested for sleep apnea, for
instance, are a valuable target, Salon
says.

As it turns out, comprehensive reform of America’s medical
system will bring a new layer of transparency into the murky world of drug and
device makers and payments to physicians.

Derided as “Obamacare” by some, the Affordable Care Act will
do something all Americans should applaud. It will expose financial ties
between Big Pharma (and Big Sleep) and the doctors who take an oath to “do no
harm.”

According to Salon,
beginning next year, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers
will be required to publicly report what they pay physicians who pimp their products.
Companies that pay six-figure speaking fees and other marketing to physicians
will report those expenditures to a federal database.

As Land Line has reported in the past, ties run
deep between Big Sleep and advisory boards like the FMCSA Medical Review
Boards, which has indicated a willingness to require expensive testing for
drivers.

While medical and insurance industries adjust to the ACA’s
new provisions, truck drivers will be able to see who is influencing these
decision makers. It’s good to see a law bring transparency to one of our
nation’s wealthiest and most powerful industries.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Sometimes it’s the destination, not the journey, which makes
the trip worthwhile. OOIDA Life Member Lee Strebel stopped by last week to chat
with us about a run he made from Chicago to Washington D.C.

Strebel, of Peachtree City, GA, is an owner/operator
specializing in hauling specialized, pad-wrapped cargo. Last week he pulled
into Riverwood Studios in Chicago to pick up just such a load: the scenery for
a production of “Hello Dolly” slated for a March 15 opening run at Ford’s
Theatre.

Yes, THAT Ford’s Theatre … the one in Washington, D.C. The
one where John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Arguably
one of the most famous performance venues in America.

“They offered me a load going to Washington, DC, and like
most truck drivers it was, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to,’” he said. “But it was
paying really good, so I said, ‘OK, you’ve perked my interest.”

The load itself filled only about half the trailer. Strebel
said he was in snow from Chicago, all the way to Maryland. The worst part was
around Chicago, but “once I got south, it was just more of a nuisance than
anything else.”

With a 5 a.m. delivery time to beat traffic on the Beltway,
Strebel pulled up to the Ford at about 4:30 a.m. His only company was a series
of “No Parking” signs standing as sentinels along the street.

Even though he had the 5 a.m. call time for his delivery,
the crew didn’t show up to unload his cargo until about 8 a.m. That’s when
things got interesting. Strebel said he was given a guided tour of the theater
by a member of the National Park Service, which oversees administration of the
historic building.

“He took me up to places they don’t take people on the
regular tour,” he said. “You get goose bumps walking in that place and just
realizing all the history that went on.

“One of the things they were saying is that not too long
after Lincoln was shot there, the theater closed. It was a warehouse for a
while; it was offices for a while. In 1964, the National Park Service got that
building and took artists’ renditions, paintings and stuff from the theater and
they completely restored the theater back to exactly the way it was.”

What stood out most to Strebel was the layout and
construction.

“The way that theater was built, it’s just about opposite of
the way theaters today are built,” he said. “The seating in the theater on the
main floor usually is raked, where people are sitting, but in the old Ford
Theatre, the way they built things in the 1800s, the seating was flat, and the
stage was raked. So everybody still had a good seat to watch any kind of
production. I guess if you’re an actor, you’ve gotta be in pretty good shape
because you’re walking up and downhill all day long during the performance.
There’s not a level spot on that stage.”

By today’s standards, Ford’s Theatre is small, seating only
about 600 people. But Strebel says the front of house isn’t the only area
feeling the pinch of close confines.

“The backstage area, there’s a door there that goes out into
the rear parking lot where they load and unload everything,” he said. “There’s
really no room; there’s no backstage or anything.”

Unchanged from Lincoln’s era is the loading door backstage.
Like an old barn door, it slides open and closed.

“That same door that we opened to move everything in is
where he escaped out with a broken leg, and had somebody tending his horse out
there in the rear alley,” he said. “You can’t get back there with a truck. They
had to unload me off the street and move it all back there with a straight
truck.”

Strebel said the thing that stood out most to him was seeing
the Presidential Box, where John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln from behind. Strebel
said he was not able to go inside the box, however.

“No, no, that door is locked!” he said. “The cleaning crew
goes in there maybe once a month to straighten up, but nobody goes in. I said, ‘Well
what would happen if one of the presidents wanted to come to a production here?’
(The guide) said the last president who actually came while he was a sitting
president to just a general production was George H.W. Bush. He said they sat
him on the eighth or ninth row, right on the aisle … That’s the best seat in
the house right there. You’re back far enough where you can see the whole stage
without looking up. The front row, you’re really looking up.”

The private tour had an added bonus. It kept Strebel off the
roads long enough to miss the morning traffic.

“For so many drivers, Washington, DC, and New York City…
drivers don’t want to go there (because of the traffic),” he said. “Where I
went, it’s two blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue… Two blocks down and six blocks
west is where the White House is. That’s how close you are to that theater.
Lincoln walked there that night as rumor had it.”

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